Pine Ridge, with a life expectancy lower than Haiti’s 49 years, is one of the poorest places in the Western Hemisphere. If there is a Ground Zero for Native American conflicts with white European colonizers (and there are certainly many), Pine Ridge is near the top of the list. It is the home of Wounded Knee, where the massacre of 1890 and standoff of 1973 took place. It is the home of the Oglala Shootout, where Leonard Peltier was implicated and later (and still) imprisoned, a scapegoat to demonstrate FBI suppression of Native liberation.

Bernie has shown unprecedented attention to Native American issues as a presidential candidate.